Bingo.
“The man you saw directly before you died, what did he look like?”
“Older than me, but not too old. He could have been a grad student or a postdoc. He had dark hair and he wore a long, dark coat.”
A trickle of icy sweat ran down my spine. That description sounded exactly like the col ector I’d seen near the rift.
“How many of these unexplained deaths did you say you had?” I asked Tamara after I returned Andrew to his body.
Her cheeks caved inward as she chewed the inside of her mouth, and she glanced toward the cold room and the bodies stored inside. “More than a dozen. Maybe fourteen?
But those are only the deaths deemed to be under suspicious circumstances.”
Which meant that if the reaper had hit a hospital or anywhere else that deaths would be written off as due to natural causes or at least expected, it was probable there were a lot more victims than we knew about. But we were fairly certain of fourteen victims, plus the two skimmers I saw him take. Sixteen souls. I wasn’t sure what process turned a soul into fuel for a spel , but the ravens had each dissipated into only smal amounts of soul mist, so I guessed that the soul fueling them had been broken up somehow. So what, maybe three or four souls among the thirty-two birds? Adding in the soul for the cu sith attack, that accounted for no more than five of the victims. There were a lot of unaccountedfor souls out there.
And the potential for a lot of constructs.
Chapter 22
John arrived at the morgue at six thirty on the dot wearing the same clothes I’d seen last night, now wrinklier, and with bags large enough to house a pixie under his eyes.
“Jeez, John, did you get any sleep?” I asked, as Tamara pushed Jennifer’s body back into the morgue’s cold storage room.
He pressed his palm against one eye and dragged it down his face. “Recently?”
The air around John buzzed slightly with magic, which was weird because John was a nul —no magical affinity at al . He could walk through a magical barrier without even noticing it existed. He had nothing against magic—
obviously; he was, after al , my first contact with the police—
but he never used charms. I let my senses stretch, tasting the magic.
“A stay-awake charm? John, those things are dangerous.”
“Yeah, wel , it was this or an IV of caffeine. The charm was easier.” He focused on me for the first time. “You okay?”
I shrugged, a movement that turned into a tremble.
Raising a pair of shades probably wasn’t the best way to prepare for a difficult ritual, but I now knew the reaper was stealing souls. I wasn’t sure what to do about that fact—I mean, what does a mortal do about a rogue reaper?—and I couldn’t yet prove he was supplying the souls for the constructs, but I was starting to put things together.
Hopeful y we would learn even more when we raised a Hopeful y we would learn even more when we raised a shade from the foot.
“Rianna should be here soon,” I said, glancing toward the large steel doors. At least I hoped Rianna was on her way.
I’d never sent messages via brownie before.
John rubbed a hand over the ever-expanding bald spot on his head. “So, what is the story with you working for the FIB?”
Crap. I’d seriously been hoping he wouldn’t ask. A little overoptimistic there, Alex. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah?” His mustache twitched, a quick swish of displeasure, but I was saved from having to answer any more questions by the morgue door opening.
Rianna stood in the doorway, looking unsure until her deep-sunk eyes landed on me. Then a feeble smile broke on her face and she scuttled across the room, her woodensoled shoes clunking on the linoleum floor.
“I’m glad you made it,” I said, since I couldn’t thank her for coming. Then I accepted her hug as she tossed her arms around my neck.
She pul ed back quickly. “You’re cold.”
“It happens.” I introduced her to John and Tamara, who both gave me questioning glances when I used Rianna’s name. It took me a second to realize why. They were both good enough friends to know that my roommate in academy was another grave witch, named Rianna McBride
—they also knew she’d disappeared a handful of years ago. I hadn’t told anyone I’d found her, and I certainly wasn’t going to get into her being a captive of Faerie. “So which foot do you want us to try to raise a shade from?” I asked, trying to keep the focus on the business at hand.
“How about the one from last night? It’s a good puzzle.”
John glanced at Tamara, who nodded and walked back to the cold room.
She returned pushing a gurney covered with a white sheet. A sheet with only the smal est lump in the center.